The cross-disciplinary collaboration that characterized so much teaching and research in the College is especially lively in its Division of Physical Sciences. In 1994, the Departments of Physics and Astronomy merged to form a single department. But because of space limitations that have constrained the College for decades, the new Department has remained geographically fragmented, hampering its potential for integrated research. Physics and Astronomy classrooms, laboratories and faculty offices are still scattered over several campus locations. Moreover, no new undergraduate science classroom has been built at UCLA since 1963, but science has not stood still in the meantime.

To keep pace with the future of science, the College is building a new six-level structure for Physics and Astronomy to bring the entire department into a single space. The new building will replace plasma physics laboratories south of Powell Library and will adjoin Knudsen Hall on the northwest. The first two floors will house teaching laboratories, study areas and new multimedia classrooms for undergraduate instruction. Upper levels will accomodate graduate instruction and faculty offices. An auditorium will relieve classroom shortages throughout the College. And two underground levels will house state-of-the-art laboratories, including vibration-free space and a high-bay area designed for the most exacting research.

Support to construct this new building will allow UCLA's superb physicists and astronomers to tackle some of the most exciting scientific questions of our time - from understanding how muscles contract to exploring the origin and distribution of life in the cosmos.

Just as important - the Physical Sciences are the basis of all modern technology. Physical Sciences faculty and students examine the fundamental components of our world. They map molecules, explore the ocean, look under the earth's surface to gauge seismic activity, design mathematical models of global weather activity, and peer into outer soace to explore newly formed galaxies at the edge of the universe.

ð  Jim Heath is shaping the new field of nanotechnology. He and his colleagues are working to build a molecular-based computer with the power of a hundred high-end workstations in the space of a grain of sand. "I really want to make this computer happen," says Professor Heath, who logs up to eighty hours a week in his laboratory. "It would be great if it changed the world; I think we have a real chance."
ð  Andrea Ghez settled a quarter-century of scientific debate with her discovery of an immense black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Professor Ghez is one of more than a hundred faculty and research associates who will occupy the new Physics and Astronomy Building.
ð  Of five UCLA professors who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, four - Paul Boyer (chemistry, 1997), Donald J. Cram (chemistry, 1987), Julian S. Schwinger (physics, 1965) and Willard F. Libby (chemistry, 1960) - have taught in the Division of Physical Sciences.